Naming the experience (and not the product)
Coffee company Douwe Egberts and Philips developed a coffee brewing system that delivers fresh, individual doses of coffee quickly and tastes delicious at the same time. The coffee that comes out has a creamy top layer. Their working name was Caffè Crema.
Globrands recommended to name it Senseo. Ten years later, Sara Lee bought 50% ownership of the Senseo trademark from Philips for 170 million euros.
At first, DE only assigned Globrands to develop the international name for the coffee bags, which resulted in the very descriptive and easy to understand term ‘coffee pad’.
At a later date, Globrands was engaged to develop the name for the whole concept.
Ease of use and the creamy taste were seen as essential attributes of the concept, leading to Caffè Crema as the preferred name.
Globrands then recommended that these characteristics were too functional to use as a base for a brand name. This new brand should be able to stand alone as a category by itself and possibly contain a multitude of underlying elements. That's why we recommended to let the name focus on the experience, and less on the product.
A simple wordmark standing for a revolutionary story
The name that eventually met all juridical, linguistic and conceptual criteria, was ‘Senseo’. It sounds Italian, but for everyone in the world it is easy to pronounce and remember. It references to feeling, tasting and smelling. In this context, the simple form and the ‘-eo’ suffix create a feeling of individuality.
The word ‘Crema’ was initially added to give an immediate impression of the primary benefits of the new concept. It was then to be excluded as soon as the name Senseo was established enough to speak for itself.
Senseo has become an international cultural icon and a huge commercial success.